by

Chris Hedges: American Fascist Christian Right

American Jesus

Image by Chris Barker via Flickr

with Chris Hedges

Dandelion Salad

RT America on Nov 14, 2020

On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to the Rev. Mel White about the Christian Right, “a homegrown fascist movement,” which has been organizing to take political power for decades, and during the Trump administration seized senior positions in the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government. A move violating US Constitutional powers of separation of church and state.

Hedges in his book American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America states there are 70 million evangelicals in the United States, representing about 25 percent of the population, attending more than 200,000 evangelical churches. Polls indicate that about 40 percent of respondents believe in the Bible as the “actual word of God,” and that it is “to be taken literally, word for word.”

The Rev. Mel White, is author of Religion Gone Bad: Hidden Dangers from the Christian Right.

Transcript

From the archives:

Abby Martin: Will the Supreme Court Overturn the Election for Trump?

Abby Martin: Abolish the Supreme Court!

Ruth Bader Ginsburg and America’s Priestly Class, by Kenn Orphan

Abby Martin and Chris Hedges: Christianized Fascism Is More Dangerous Than The Alt-Right

Trump’s Cabinet: The Church of Neoliberal Evangelicals + Abby Martin: 2016–Year in Review

18 thoughts on “Chris Hedges: American Fascist Christian Right”

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  14. I’m not sure I understood this, but it sounds to me like the so-called “literal bible” would be more descriptively called “the cherry-picked, misleading bible.”

    No, really, we all find in religion whatever we’re looking for, whatever we already believe. But the people in the Christian Right believe some pretty nasty, selfish things. Shakespeare said correctly that “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” Also, “God created man in his own image, and man — being a gentleman — returned the favor” — attributed to the painter Henri Rousseau (not to be confused with the more famous philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau).

    I’m no exception to that. My own opinion, based on things Jesus said, is that Jesus was an anarcho-communist like me, though he mixed it up with some beliefs about the supernatural that were common in his time.

  15. I don’t see any point in stating the obvious, but then nothing is ever that obvious. I found this conversation interesting but unnerving, as I have been so acutely aware of the encroaching threat for so many years. The trick I suppose, if that is even an appropriate term, is to think about religion as a creative force, not as a given or tangible thing in itself.

    I don’t think we really understand religion yet as a species. It may be that religion is a reflexive and time limited means, not an end at all or a final destination; although eventually we all must face the realities of mortality. Metaphysical insight and understanding can open vistas of transcendental beauty and significance. So why must there be an end? Why not eternal beginnings?

    The critical step on the high road to a sacred existence is the cultivation of (a) coherent philosophy. It seems to me unwise to believe in things blindly that we do not fully comprehend. Yet, it may be wise to believe that there will be ground under foot upon which our next step alights, but that is not actually necessary; it is enough to have the courage and the confidence to simply take that next step. Perhaps our instinctive conviction that it will be successful, is sufficient reason not to remain petrified from fear, paralysed by doubt & intimidated by any sense of hopeless inadequacy.

    America, and the world are at a critical cusp. Life has its own momentum, irrespective of our political shenanigans and screaming egos. There are those things that we do, and other things we should be smart enough to avoid doing, simply abstain from, like being complicit in poisoning the seas, ruining ecosystems or wasting our fertile soils. Archimedes is said to have famously alleged he could move anything, even the entire Earth with a sufficiently powerful lever and suitable fulcrum.

    There is no more powerful agent than the unshackled mind; all it needs to function well is the will to confidently exercise its creative potential….

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